‘Do all boys cook in France? Everyone here just goes to McDonald’s or KFC.’
‘No, I don’t sink so. My friends, they prefer McDonald also. I like too, sometimes. But I enjoy to cook.’
‘Cool.’ I blush. I think he might just be the perfect boy. ‘Well, Amy’s house is about ten minutes up Camden Road, just off it, in a posh little square.’
‘A leetle scware?’ He looks perplexed. Maybe they don’t have squares in France, or maybe he can’t pronounce it.
‘Yeah, like a street with a green bit in the middle . . . Never mind. You’ll see.’
We stroll up Camden Road, chatting about his sisters; he has two, both older than him, one of whom has left home already and is training as a teacher in Paris. I tell him they sound cool and he makes that raised eyebrow, half-frown, half-pout expression again, which makes him look so very French. I don’t tell him that I’ve always wanted a sister, someone to chat to and share things with, especially when things get hard with Mum. Even a brother would do. Being an only child sucks sometimes. Maybe that’s why I’m so close to Rosie and Sky; I guess I think of them as my surrogate sisters.
‘So what else do you like doing in Nice, apart from going to the beach?’ I ask.
‘I play volleyball and football.’
‘Yeah? Are you any good?’
‘Not bad. I am in zee school team.’
‘Cool. I used to play football too, when I was younger. I play netball now – I’m top scorer in my year, actually.’
‘Ah, oui? Netball?’
‘You don’t have it? It’s like basketball, I guess, except you don’t bounce the ball.’
He stops and looks me up and down, then grins. ‘But you are not so tall.’
I redden. I’m a perfectly average height, I just feel awkward when he stares at me. ‘You don’t have to be for netball.’
‘Ah, oui?’
‘Wee.’ It’s practically the first French word I’ve said since he arrived and I feel ridiculously self-conscious about my accent. I know the whole point of the exchange is to improve my French speaking but Xavier is so good at English, and his accent is so appealing when he speaks it, that there isn’t much incentive to try.
He smiles. ‘Ah, tu parles Français!’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I can speak a tiny bit of French but your English is tons better. And my accent is awful.’
‘No! Eez cute axont. I love zee axont Anglais.’
‘Really?’ I’ve never really considered that French people might like English accents as much as we like French ones. It’s hard to imagine that my North London vowels can sound sexy to anyone.
He nods and I blush for what must be the millionth time today. ‘Come on,’ I say, changing the subject. ‘We’re nearly there. We just need to cross the road.’
Before I can stop him, he has stepped off the kerb. A motorbike zooms past, missing him by a nose. On instinct, I grab his jacket and drag him back to safety. ‘Xavier, what are you thinking? Don’t they teach you the Green Cross Code in France?’
‘Mon dieu!’ he says, appearing visibly shaken. ‘My God! I sink I was looking zee wrong way. I forget – you Engleesh drive on zee left.’
‘Er, yes, we do. It’s kind of an important thing to remember. God, Xavier, please don’t do that again. Apart from anything else, can you imagine how much trouble I’ll be in if I get you run over?’
He laughs. ‘No worries. I am Français. I cannot be hurt by zee English cars.’
‘It wasn’t a car, it was a motorbike. Quite a cool one, actually.’
‘Ah, oui. You like zee motorbikes?’
‘God, yes. I’m not allowed to ride one yet, obviously. But I’ve always wanted a motorbike and as soon as I’m old enough, I’m going to get one. Or a scooter, at least.’
He seems impressed, like boys always are. But this is one guy whom I really don’t want seeing me as ‘one of the lads’. Well done, Vix, I tell myself, you’ve done it again.
Or maybe not . . .
‘My cousin, he has a scooter. He lets me ride it sometimes, not on zee roads. Maybe if you come to Nice I can give you a ride, on zee back.’
Is he inviting me to Nice? That means he likes me and wants to stay in touch. Or maybe I’m reading too much into a throwaway comment . . . ‘Cool,’ I say, turning away, so he can’t see blush one million and one. ‘Come on. It’s safe to cross now.’
We walk a short way further up Camden Road and then turn right into a little road, which leads into Camden Square. ‘This is it,’ I say, stopping to allow him to take it in. I think he’ll probably be disappointed: it’s just a square of large, expensive townhouses, with some greenery in the middle. Just another Camden street. A pretty street but, in the end, only a street. There’s nothing much to see any more. For weeks, months, after she died, the place was like a shrine, with hordes of fans pouring through, singing and crying together and leaving photographs and mementos. But the tributes to Amy – the bottles, bouquets, photos, candles and notes – have long since been removed, leaving just the street sign covered in her fans’ scrawlings and some RIP messages carved into the trees. It doesn’t stop people coming though; tourists are always stopping me in Camden Road to ask the way to Amy’s house. When I give them directions, they look at me with respect, as if I’m privileged to be a real Camdener.
Xavier gazes around. He’s quiet, mournful, like somebody in church. ‘Which eez zee ’ouse of Amy?’ he asks, eventually.
‘It’s at the end,’ I say, pointing to the far corner. ‘You can’t get right up to it, but I’ll take you as far as we can go.’
I lead him across the square until we’re a respectful distance from the house. ‘It’s that one,’ I say, looking up. He looks up too, at the tall Edwardian villa, and nods. He doesn’t say anything. I guess, like everybody else who comes to visit, he’s imagining what it was like to live and die in there.
We stand in silence for a minute or two and then he takes my hand and gives me a little hug. ‘Sank you, Veecks,’ he says, into my collar. ‘For taking me to zees place.’
I hug him back, my heart pounding wildly, my nose pressed into his neck. As I breathe in his scent, I think that I’d be happy staying like this all day – hell, for the rest of my life if I could. And then the moment is gone and I start to feel awkward and self-conscious. I can’t tell if he’s simply feeling emotional, and just wants to hug someone, and I’m the only person around, or if he really does want to hug me. Realising that I’m enjoying the hug a little too much, and that it probably doesn’t mean what I want it to mean, I pull away.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s go home. We can play some Amy tracks later if you like.’
um hasn’t always been ill, although I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t. She told me that it all started just after I was born. One day, when I was tiny – about a month old – her left eye went all blurry, and she couldn’t see properly for about a week. She thought it was just because she was so tired from getting up in the night to feed me. It made sense. I was a bit of a nightmare as a baby, everyone says – always crying, never sleeping. Her eye got better all by itself and then, a couple of months later, she woke up one morning, tried to get out of bed, and discovered that her legs simply wouldn’t work. She says they felt like wads of cotton wool crumpling beneath her. She ended up falling on to the carpet and lying there, helpless, until Dad came back from the shops and heard her calling out. I was in my cot at the end of the bed and I was screaming and screaming because I was hungry and needed my nappy changing, but there was nothing she could do. It must have been really scary for her.
Months passed and her legs got better too but, after that, she was never the same again. Her symptoms came and went. Sometimes her hands wouldn’t work properly, sometimes it was her legs or her eyes. She says she felt exhausted all the time. There she was, a new mum with a tiny baby, and some days she couldn’t even walk or carry me. She saw all kinds of doctors and had tons of horrible tests, and it took mont
hs to find out what was wrong. There wasn’t a cure.
For a few years, when I was little, she was fairly well, and so I guess I got used to having a ‘normal’ mum, who could take me out to the park and play with me and pick me up from my friends’ houses. I was too young to remember what had happened when I was a baby so, when she was too tired to do anything with me, I didn’t understand. When she said she had a bad leg or pain in her arms, it didn’t make sense; she hadn’t had an accident, had she? Sometimes, I thought she was angry with me because I’d been naughty, or maybe she was avoiding me because she didn’t love me very much.
And then, when I was ten, her legs turned to cotton wool again and, this time, they didn’t get better. She stumbled around, falling into things, until she gave in and had to start using a stick. That’s when my parents finally told me what was wrong: something called multiple sclerosis, or MS for short. Now, the doctors say her illness is progressing. She’s never going to get better, only worse.
I’ve asked her about it many times because I can’t help feeling guilty. Maybe if she hadn’t given birth to me, she would have stayed well. Maybe it’s my fault. She swears that it isn’t and that, even if it was, she would still have had me. Her illness had probably been lying dormant in her brain for years, waiting for an opportunity to pounce. I’ve read a lot about it on the internet – secretly, because Mum and Dad say that there’s too much scary information out there, which I don’t need to worry about – and it says that some women with her illness do have their first symptoms, or get worse, after they have a baby. Whatever she says, I can’t help blaming myself.
Maybe that’s why I feel so confused and annoyed with myself when I resent having to do things for her. I tell everybody that I don’t mind, and they all think I’m so mature and sensible and responsible. But I do mind. I really do. The only thing Rosie and Sky ever have to do is clean their own bedrooms or, if they’re really unlucky, help with the washing up. I’d love to have all the free time that they have to instant message, text and go on Facebook, fool around with make-up, or just lie in late at the weekends. The only way I fit everything in is by being super organised. I’d love to be able to go out with them and not be worrying about how Mum is, and what I’ll have to do when I get home. I’d love to have some time just for me. I don’t say anything because I don’t want to seem ungrateful or be a moaner. Nobody really understands unless they’ve been there, do they? I don’t want to be different. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me. I want to be like everybody else.
And that’s why, after thinking about it, I’ve decided not to tell Xavier what’s wrong with my mum. If he asks, I’m going to tell him she had an accident and hurt her leg. A car accident, maybe, if he wants more details. It’s only a little white lie. What harm can it do?
onday morning. Bleuggh. At least Dad is here, so I don’t have to help Mum before school today. But I can’t get up yet – it would be against the laws of nature; my bed feels so cosy and my duvet fits my body so well, as if it was made to measure. Maybe if I just let my eyelids flutter shut for a few more minutes . . .
And there’s that horrible alarm again, piercing through my dreams. OK, OK, I’m getting up. How I wish it could be the weekend for ever, especially now that Xavier is here. We had such a lovely time yesterday evening, singing along to CDs and making up the words when we weren’t sure what they were. Apparently, in French, that’s called ‘yogurt’. If you don’t understand what you’re hearing, you just invent the lyrics instead, or mumble nonsense and hope no one can tell. After we’d ‘yogurted’ our way through Amy’s entire back catalogue (which is easy to do, as she’s so slurry even I can’t make out some of the words), we got out some of Mum and Dad’s old records and did the same to them. We were laughing so hard, we were practically crying, giggling so much that my tummy muscles still hurt. (I even let out a little fart, but I don’t think Xavier heard. God, I hope he didn’t.) This is how ‘You’re The One That I Want’ from Grease sounds to Xavier . . .
I’ve got shoes zair muzzer flying
And the blues is to crawl
Cos the flower you’re zer flying
It’s elezzerfying
I think I might like Xavier’s version better.
During dinner, last night, Rosie texted to say she was a bit miffed that Xavier and I had left the market so early. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned, in my reply, that we went to see Amy Winehouse’s place. Stupid, I know, but I couldn’t help it; I’m so used to telling Rosie everything. She said Manon was a huge Amy Winehouse fan, and that she would have loved the chance to come too. We can go again, I said, it’s only up the road. Rosie texted back something along the lines of that if I wanted to get on with Manon, then I should make more of an effort. I didn’t bother replying to that bit.
I’m sure Rosie will understand, when I explain how good it was for me to spend some time with Xavier on my own. We’re getting closer, becoming good friends; I can feel it. I don’t dare to hope that there’s more to it, but maybe, just maybe . . . He didn’t have to hang out with just me, all afternoon and evening, did he? I offered to call Rosie and Sky to see if they wanted to come and join us after dinner and he said, ‘No, eez OK, just you and me.’ He didn’t have to give me a hug before he went to bed, but he chose to. And he didn’t have to compliment me, either. He said, ‘I like your hairs,’ which made me blush and laugh at the same time. I didn’t want to spoil the moment by correcting his English.
‘Are you ready, Vix? We need to get a move on.’
I can hear Dad shouting from downstairs. No, I’m not ready, and I haven’t had breakfast yet, but I can go without for once. Dad is giving Xavier a lift to the boys’ school, on his way to work, and I’m coming along for the ride. It means I can’t walk to school with Rosie, like I usually do, but it wouldn’t be the same, anyway, with Manon trotting along beside us, all haughty and cold.
Dad says Xavier should sit in the front seat of the car, next to him, but he declines the offer and joins me in the back instead. He says it’s because it would be weird to sit where the driver sits in France. I prefer to think that he just wants to sit next to me. Dad doesn’t like it. ‘I feel like a bleedin’ taxi driver,’ he says. But he catches my eye in the rear-view mirror, while he’s driving, and gives me a little wink and a smile. He clearly likes Xavier and I think he also likes the fact that we’re getting on so well. I pretend not to notice: it’s embarrassing. Thankfully, he’s stopped trying to impress Xavier with his prehistoric French. He chats away to him in English instead, about football and rugby – the universal men’s languages. Luckily, I know a fair bit about both, so I can join in the conversation.
We’re just parking up outside the boys’ school, when Xavier spots two of the other French exchange boys walking along together. He winds down the car window and shouts something to them in French, which I guess must mean ‘Hey come over here!’ because they turn and walk towards the car. It’s fairly obvious that they’re trying to get a good look at me through the window, and it makes me feel very self-conscious. As they approach, Xavier grabs his backpack and opens the door, putting one foot on to the pavement. ‘Sank you, Sir,’ he says to Dad. And then, just as I think he’s about to go without saying goodbye, he does something totally unexpected: he turns back to me and plants three big kisses on my cheeks, left, right and left again. In full view of his friends. ‘Ad t’aleur, Veecks. See you later,’ he says, putting his hand on my knee for a second, as he jumps out.
I will Dad to put his foot on the accelerator and go from nought to sixty in less than five seconds, so that Xavier and his friends, who are standing by the car, can’t see how flustered I am. I know French people kiss each other all the time – Xavier’s kissing his mates hello right now – but three kisses! And a knee touch too! It must mean . . . something. Of course, Dad doesn’t speed off. He gently puts on the hand brake and suggests that I get out of the car too and come to join him in the front.
I don’t move until Xavier a
nd his friends have turned their backs and walked away. Then, smoothing down my skirt, I take a deep, calming breath, climb out and walk around to the front of the car.
‘It’s lovely to see you looking so happy,’ says Dad, as I do up my seat belt. That’s Dad code for, ‘Ah, so you like the French boy, don’t you?’
‘I’m fine, Dad,’ I say. Which is Daughter code for, ‘It’s none of your business.’
‘Good. It’s wonderful to see you looking so relaxed. I don’t think I’ve heard you laugh that much for ages. Having Xavier here is obviously doing you the world of good. And,’ he says, putting the car into first gear, ‘I think it’s probably good for all of us.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that as a family we’ve got into a bit of a depressing routine, dealing with your Mum’s illness. I work too much, you do far too much to help around the house and Mum is miserable because she can do less and less. It’s not your fault – and it’s certainly not your Mum’s – but I don’t think it’s been great for anyone.’
I nod. ‘I guess.’
‘You’re fourteen – you should be out there having fun, not worrying about your mother. Xavier coming . . . it’s . . . Well, having a stranger to stay makes everything a little more normal. Bizarrely.’
‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’
‘I don’t suppose you had.’ There’s a tease in his voice. ‘But then you’ve been too busy gazing at Xavier’s dimples.’
I sink into the upholstery. ‘Daaad! That’s just so not true.’
‘Come on, Vix. I might be old but I remember what it was like to be your age and to fancy someone. All those hormones . . . I reckon it’s about time you got yourself a boyfriend.’
‘God, you are so embarrassing. And patronising. If this is what it’s going to be like every time I speak to a boy, I think I might just have to become a nun now.’
‘We’re not Catholic.’
‘Well then, I’ll just have to convert first. And then become a nun.’